Jacob Grimm is a foundational figure in anime and manga as the original creator of the fairy tales that have served as source material for numerous Japanese productions. Alongside his brother Wilhelm, he is credited as the original creator or original story author for a wide array of anime films, television series, and manga adaptations, primarily due to their work collecting and publishing European folk tales in the early 19th century.

As an original creator, Jacob Grimm’s name appears in the credits of productions spanning several decades. In film, he is credited for the 1987 anime movie Grimm Douwa - Kin no Tori, also known as Grimm’s Fairy Tales: The Golden Bird, which is based on the Brothers Grimm story of the same name. For television, his body of credited work includes the series Grimm Dōwa, New Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and The Legend of Snow White. The long-running anthology series World Fairy Tale Series also credits him as the original creator for seven episodes that adapt specific Grimm tales. Similarly, the OAV series World Famous Fairy Tale Series lists him as an original creator. A notable entry in home video is the 1993 OAV Hello Kitty in Snow White, for which Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm are explicitly credited as the original creators.

Beyond these direct adaptations, Grimm’s source material has been utilized across various other media within the industry. For manga, Jacob Grimm is credited as the original creator for Grimms Manga Tales and as the original concept for the manga adaptation of Kilala Princess, which incorporates the story of Snow White. His stories are also listed as the source for characters and elements in the manga adaptations of the Kingdom Hearts video game series, including Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts II, and Kingdom Hearts III, where the tales of Snow White and Rapunzel appear.

The enduring influence of Jacob Grimm’s work in anime is further demonstrated by modern reinterpretations. The 2024 original net animation series The Grimm Variations, produced by Wit Studio for Netflix, is directly based on the Brothers Grimm fairy tales. In this series, Jacob Grimm appears as a character, voiced by Tatsuhisa Suzuki in Japanese and Daman Mills in English, who, alongside his brother, serves as a framing device for the dark, reimagined anthology stories. His role in such a high-profile contemporary production highlights the lasting industry significance of his work, which continues to serve as a wellspring of source material for new and varied adaptations across the anime and manga landscape.